Chapter 6 Structure Flashcards
A consensual standard that identifies preferable, positive sanctioned behaviors/ it defines a the socially appropriate way to respond in a social situation
Ex: “food should be shared equally”, etc
Prescriptive Norm
A consensual standard that identifies prohibited, negatively sanctioned behaviors./ Types of action that should be avoided if at all possible.
“Don’t urinate inside the airplane”, etc
Proscriptive Norm
Descriptive Norm
A consensual standard that describes how people typically act, feel, and think in a given situation.
Ex: arriving on time to a meeting, and not falling sleep
Injunctive Norm
An evaluative consensual standard that describes how people should act, feel and think in a given situation rather than what people do act, feel, and think in that situation./ it describes sorts of behaviors that people ought to perform.
People who don’t comply to descriptive norms might be viewed as unusual, but people who violate inj. norms are negatively evaluated and are opened to sanction by other group members
Notes
Norms are emergent, consensual standards that regulate group member’s behavior. Emergent because they develop gradually during the course of interactions among members.
They are a fundamental element of a group’s structure, for they provide direction and motivation, organized social interactions, and make other people’s responses predictable and meaningful. Nor,s tend to be implicit standards more than explicit
Person that tested how norms in groups where created. In his study he put people together to judge how far a dot moved.
Muzafer Sherif
Term use to describe people who move to other groups but still keep some of the all norms.
Internalized Norm
Norms might not change (even though they might be bad or counter productive) until 5 or 6 group membership changes. Who studied this?
Jacobs & Campbell 1961 and MacNeil & Sherif 1976
Pluralistic Ignorance
When members of a group privately vary in outlook and expectations, but publicly they act similarly because they believes that they are the only ones whose personal views are different from the rest of the group
Self-Generating Norms
And
Stable Norms
Emerge as members reach a consensus through reciprocal influence
Once they develop, resistant to change and passed from current members to new members
Implicit Norms
Often so taken for granted that members follow them automatically
Roles
Coherent sets of behaviors expected of people in specific positions within a group or social setting.
In groups people can fulfill the same role in somewhat different ways, and so as long as they do not stray too far from the role’s basic requirements.
An increase in the number of roles in a group, accompanied by the gradual decrease in the scope of these roles as each ones becomes more narrowly defined and specialized!
Role Differentiation
What is the Typology of Roles in Groups and Who Created It?
A list of roles who Kenneth Benne and Paul Sheats’s (1948) believed are necessary for a group to survive.
National Training Laboratory, an organization devoted to the improvement of groups.
Task Role
Any position in a group occupied by a member who performs behaviors that promote completions of tasks and activities, such as initiating structure, providing task-related feedback, and setting goals.
Any position in a group occupied by a member who performs behaviors that improve the nature and quality of interpersonal relations among members, such as showing concern for the feelings of others, reducing conflict, and enhancing feelings of satisfaction and trust in the group.
Relationship Role
Individual Role
Roles in which members emphasize their own needs over the group’s needs.
Task roles: Different Types
Initiator/Contributor: recommends snow solutions, ideas to solve problems, and new ways to approach it
Information Seeker: getting facts
Opinion Seeker: asks for qualitative data
Information Giver: provides data
Opinion Giver
Elaborator: gives additional information
Coordinator: shows relevance of each idea and its relationship to the overall problem.
Orienter: refocuses discussions
Evaluator/Critic: appraises methods, logic, and results
Energizer: stimulates the group to continue working when discussion flags
Procedural Technician: cares for operation detail.
Recorder
Relationship Roles: Different Types
Encourager
Harmonizer
Compromiser: shifts his or her own position on an issue in order to reduce conflict in the group
Gatekeeper/Expediter: smooths communication by setting up procedures and ensuring equal participation.
Group Observer/Commentator: points out positive and negative characteristics.
Follower
Individual Roles: Different Types
Aggressor: disapproves of acts, ideas, etc. attacks the group
Blocker: resists the group’s influence. Negativistic
Dominator: manipulative
Evader/Self-Confessor: interest about unrelated things about the group
Help seeker: insecurity, confusion, etc
Recognition seeker: calls attention
Playboy: uninvolved, cynical
Special-interest pleader: remains part of the group by acting as representative of another social group
Who argued that there is so much differentiation because a single individual cannot fulfill both the task and relationship roles
Robert Bales 1955,58
Group Socialization
Pattern of change in the relationship between an individual and a group that begins when an individual first considers joining the group and ends when he or she leaves it.
Individuals might be looking for a particular role but it end up with another.
Moreland and Levine 1982.
It has 5 stages: prospective, new, full, marginal, and ex-member. The level of commitment is higher in the full member stage.
Role Ambiguity
Unclear expectations about the behaviors to be performed by an individual occupying a particular position within a group, cause by lack of clarity in the role itself, a lack of consensus within the group regarding the behaviors associated with the role, or the individual role taker’s uncertainty with regard to the types of behaviors expected by others.
Role Conflict
A state of tension, caused by inconsistent expectations associated with one’s role in the group
A form of role conflict that occurs when individuals occupy multiple roles within a group and the expectations and behaviors associated with one of their roles are not consistent with the expectations and behaviors associated with another of their roles.
Intermolecular Conflict
Results from contradictory demands within a single role
Intrarole Conflict
Role-Fit
The degree of congruence between demands of a specific role and the attitudes, values, skills, and other characteristics of the individual who occupies the role.
Social Network Analysis
A set of analysis procedures used to describe the structure through graphic representations and through mathematical procedures that quantify these structures.
Density
The degree of connectedness of group’s members, as indexed by the number of actual ties linking members divided by the number of possible ties
Degree of centrality
Depends on how many connections a person has and where he or she is positioned within the network itself.
Outdegree and Indegree
The number of ties initiated by the individual
The number of ties received by the individual
Betweenness
&
Closeness
The degree to which a group members position in a network is located among the path between other pairs of individuals in the network.
The distance, in terms of ties, of an individual from all others in the network.
Status Differentiation
The gradual rise of some group members to positions of greater authority, accompanied by decreases in the authority exercised by other members.
Pecking Order
A stable, ordered pattern of individual variations in prestige, status, and authority among group members.
Humans do this through: firm handshakes, poised posture, speaking clear and loud, etc!
Expectation-States Theory
Joseph Berger 2002
It assumes that status differences are most likely to develop when members are working collectively on a task that they feel is important.
Status Characteristics
Personal qualities that they think are indicative of abilities or prestige!
In status characteristics theory, Qualities that attest each individual’s level ability at the task tone performed in a given situation.
Ex: height in basketball
Specific Status Characteristics
In status characteristics theory, general personal qualities such as age, race, and ethnicity that people consider when estimating the relative competency, ability, and social value of themselves and others
Diffuse status characteristics
Status Generalization
Group members let diffuse characteristics influence their expectations, even though this characteristics may be irrelevant in the given situation.
Solo Status
Being the only group member who is a representative of a specific social category in an otherwise homogenous group!
Attraction Networks or Sociometric Structure
Pattern of liking/disliking, inclusion/exclusion among members of a group
The development of stronger and more positive interpersonal ties between some members of the group, accompanied by degrees in the quality of relations between other members of the group.
Sociometric Differentiation
Balance Theory
Fritz Heider.
Patterns of relationships in group are more structurally sound, or balanced, than others, and so groups naturally tend to gravitate toward these rather than toward unbalanced states.
Communication Network
Patterns of information transmission and exchange that describes who communicates most frequently and to what extend with whom.
Notes
Centralized networks of communication outperform decentralized networks.
When the task is easy: centralized
When it is hard: decentralized
Downward and upward flowing of information
Leaders to followers. Actions to be taken, suggestions, feedback, etc.
Followers to leaders. Information on performance, expressions of distrust, factual information, request for information, etc.
Systematic Multiple Level Observation of Groups
Robert Bales. Assumes that group activities can be classified along three dimensions (dominance vs submissiveness, friendliness vs unfriendliness, and acceptance versus no acceptance of authority) and that groups are more effective when these three aspects of the group align.
